July 4th was a good one for repeat wins in major stakes. In New York, Phileas Fogg romped to a second straight victory in the Suburban Stakes (G2) while, on the opposite coast, another 6-year-old, Sweet Azteca, topped that by claiming the Great Lady M Stakes (G2) at Los Alamitos Race Course for the third consecutive year.
Sweet Azteca doesn't race very often, but she has proved mightily effective when she does appear. In a career that spans a little over three years, she has faced the starter on just 10 occasions and, in that time, has suffered only two defeats. One was a third in the 2024 Las Flores Stakes (G3), which came in just her second start. The other was a fourth in the 2024 Chillingworth Stakes (G3), after which she underwent surgery on her ankle. She has also had a foot issue that sidelined her from the 2025 Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1), and last fall underwent a procedure to release an entrapped epiglottis.
In addition to her trio of victories in the Great Lady M, Sweet Azteca has also captured the 2024 Beholder Mile (G1), defeating the formidable Adare Manor, and two runnings of the Rancho Bernardo Handicap (G3), one of which—the 2025 edition—was her only outing between her second and third wins in the Great Lady M.
Sweet Azteca's sire Sharp Azteca is a son of Freud, who is a group-placed full brother to Giant's Causeway and a stalwart of the New York breeding program for more than two decades. A winner of eight of 17 starts over three campaigns, Sharp Azteca was a specialist miler. Over the course of his career, he captured six black-type events, including the Pat Day Mile Stakes (G3), Gulfstream Park Handicap (G2), Monmouth Cup Stakes (G3), Kelso Handicap (G2) and, on his penultimate outing, the Cigar Mile Handicap (G1), which he took in spectacular fashion, scoring by 5 1/4 lengths over Mind Your Biscuits and Practical Joke .
Retired to Three Chimneys Farm near Midway, Ky., for the 2019 breeding season, Sharp Azteca sired five stakes winners from 139 named foals in his first crop. Sweet Azteca was the only graded scorer, but the precocious Tyler's Tribe won his first five starts, four of them black-type events all at Prairie Meadows; Sharp Aza Tack and Alma Rosa captured juvenile stakes at Monmouth Park and Delaware Park, respectively; and Precious Meadow was a multiple black-type winner in Puerto Rico at 3. Since then, Sharp Azteca has sired 203 foals from four subsequent crops (including 2-year-olds of 2026), and just one—Queen Azteca, the Swedish-trained heroine of the 2025 UAE Oaks (G3)—has captured a black-type event. In October 2023, Sharp Azteca was sold to the Shizunai Stallion Station, Hokkaido, Japan, where he has stood since 2024.
So Sweetitiz, the dam of Sweet Azteca, won the Daisycutter Handicap and Mizdirection Stakes, both sprinting on turf in 2016. So Sweetitiz is out of Sweetitiz, an unraced daughter of El Prado, who did not produce anything else of note. The granddam of So Sweetitiz, Tizsweet, finished third in a Del Mar maiden special weight and produced just a minor stakes-placed horse from 12 foals.
Tizsweet, however, was by Cee's Tizzy out of Cee's Song, making her a full sibling to several notable performers and producers. That group is headed by Tiznow, Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old for 2000, and 2001 champion older horse, and the only horse to capture two editions of the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) in 2000-01. He narrowly defeated Freud's brother Giant's Causeway in the first. Other siblings to Tizsweet to distinguish themselves on the track include Budroyale, a multiple graded stakes winner of more than $2.84 million; the stakes-winning and graded stakes-placed Tizbud; and Tizdubai, successful in the Sorrento Stakes (G2) and granddam of graded winners Cabo Spirit and Tarifa.
Two other sisters to Tizsweet, Tizso and Tizamazing, made no impact on the racetrack but distinguished themselves as producers. Tizso is the dam of three stakes winners, including the 2012 Haskell Invitational Stakes (G1) scorer Paynter; and Tizamazing is the dam of Oxbow , who took the 2013 Preakness Stakes (G1) the following year. We should also note Tizsweet's winning half sister, You're Beautiful (by Freud's sire Storm Cat), is the granddam of 2021 Remington Park Oaks (G3) winner Lady Mystify.
The family traces back to Blue Canary, a half sister (from the same immediate sire line) to Crimson Satan, champion 2-year-old of 1961 on some polls, both being out of the imported Argentine-bred mare Papila. Additionally, a major stakes winner at 3 and 4, Crimson Satan now appears most prominently in modern pedigrees through his daughter Crimson Saint, dam of Royal Academy and granddam of Storm Cat.
Blue Canary descends from the relatively rarely seen B mitochondrial haplotype, and it is likely that an accumulation of this mtDNA line has played a significant role in the success of Tizsweet and her siblings. Tizsweet's third dam, Sleep Lonely, was by Pia Star, who also traced to the B mtDNA line. Cee's Song's sire, Seattle Song, is out of a mare by another representative of that line in Prince Blessed. Turning to Cee's Tizzy, the sire of Tizsweet and her siblings, we see that he is a grandson of In Reality, whose sire and dam were both from the B mtDNA family. There is, therefore, a strong possibility that Tizsweet and her siblings were homozygous for nuclear DNA combinations that interact favorably with mitochondria from the B mtDNA line.
